I Thought It Was Just Me: Women Reclaiming Power and Courage in a Culture of Shame

by Brené Brown

being ready to share. In her article on ordinary courage in girls’ and women’s lives, Annie Rogers writes, “One way to understand the etymology of courage is to consider its history as a series of losses. Over the course of five centuries, from 1051 to 1490, courage was cut off from its sources in time, in the heart, and in feelings. In other words, courage was slowly dissociated from what traditional Western culture considers feminine qualities, and came to mean ‘that quality of mind that shows itself in facing danger without fear or shrinking,’ a definition associated with the bravery and heroism of boys and men. The pattern of losses in the history of the word courage seems to reflect an increasing invisibility of girls’ and women’s courage in Western culture.” Without